The Journey

This is a sailing trip I did as a retirement adventure. I was in Toronto for the five weeks before I was due to start retirement. So ... I figured I would sail home, well part of the way. The deal with my wife was to be back home by the middle of October. So that meant I would have to put the boat up for winter somewhere and then fly home. But still a sailing adventure was in order.

The plan was to head up the St Lawrence waterway, into the Atlantic and then winter the boat in New England.

Step 1 was find a boat. The boat I ended up with, was the first boat I saw. It was in Port Credit, Mississauga on the hard. It was a 33' Steel cutter called Trude. It was a Ted Brewer designed "Murray", you can still buy the plans for this boat online. Anyway, its a heavy, over-built boat and had all the specs to look after me. I didn't set out to buy steel, but the more boats I saw the better Trude looked. We closed on it at the end of July.

While buying the boat, the owners son mentioned that the locks on the St Lawrence must be traversed with at least 2 people. Ewww! Step 2 - find someone dumb^H^H^H^H smart enough to do this trip with me, and find them quickly. Before I'd set out to Canada there was a few people who had volunteered to do at least part of the trip, so it would just be a matter of getting them to Toronto, right?. But of course, life is not that simple. Several excuses later the list was empty. This is when Mike, a guy I cycle with in Dallas, stepped into the breech and agreed to stay through until Rimouski. That covered all the locks and I must say I am eternally grateful to Mike for doing that. Without him I would have been trolling the pubs along the waterway trying to buy or press-gang strangers. Mike had his own adventure getting back, he took the train from Rimouski to Dallas. Yes, it can be done, eventually. He did it.

Click on the map to see the details of each of the legs or use the links below.